


A Present Elevation

by Rubynye



Category: X-Men: First Class (2011) - Fandom
Genre: Dreamwalking, M/M, Telepathy
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2011-07-15
Updated: 2011-07-15
Packaged: 2017-10-21 10:17:43
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,636
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/224088
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Rubynye/pseuds/Rubynye
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Charles fixes Erik's bad dream. Despite himself, Erik forgives him for it.</p>
            </blockquote>





	A Present Elevation

**Author's Note:**

> All Thanks To: [](http://lcsbanana.livejournal.com/profile)[**lcsbanana**](http://lcsbanana.livejournal.com/) and [](http://hitlikehammers.livejournal.com/profile)[**hitlikehammers**](http://hitlikehammers.livejournal.com/) for their wise advice and [](http://derryderrydown.livejournal.com/profile)[](http://derryderrydown.livejournal.com/)**derryderrydown** for beta reading.  
>  Title from "And She Was" by the Talking Heads, for no good reason.

They bicker endlessly, joyfully, about everything, about anything: about which method of travel, which hotel to choose, which mutant to approach next and how best to do so, about whether the CIA sees them as equal partners or useful monsters, fellow agents or lab rats. They argue genially over each other's dinner choices when they order and about philosophy and history while they're eating, and the people around them smile whether all they see are two old friends bantering or Charles and Erik growing ever more entangled.

The only time they don't argue is when the night's hotel gives them a room with just one bed, because that means they don't need to debate which to use. Charles simply grins and tackles Erik into it, and for a long warm time neither of them speak except in flickers of thought, their mouths busied with better tasks. Currently, Erik is trailing languid kisses down the tendon of Charles' throat as Charles lies trembling beneath him, unstrung and gasping and radiating satisfaction in palpable waves. Again and again Erik softly puckers his lips against the rushing pulse, his sticky fingers curved between the arches of Charles's ribs as he savors the unmarked skin. He hungers to bite down until Charles keens in pleasure, to suck until a rose-tinted bruise blooms, but he knows better, or so he keeps reminding himself. Love-bites are for women, who can chide laughingly and veil the marks with paint and powder, flirting with discovery in a way Erik and Charles can't afford, all the more so under the eyes of the American agents. Not when Charles is Erik's equal, his partner. His friend.

Charles chuckles, rolling his head on the pillow, and Erik gently bites his chin to open the sound out into a full laugh, kisses Charles's tender bottom lip and then his full mouth to taste his happiness, to taste himself warm and bitter on Charles's tongue. Charles's fingers curl behind his nape as Charles brushes his mind, a deeper kiss that makes Erik shudder with its invasive intimacy.

Charles smiles against his mouth and pushes away a little, lazily half-covering a yawn. "You make a wonderful blanket, Erik," he murmurs over Erik's cheekbone, "but a distracting one. We should sleep."

"It's not that late," Erik mumbles for form's sake, though he pulls back as well. He doesn't want to relinquish the feel of Charles' body pressed to his, all clean lines and firm warmth, which means it's past time already for him to have done so. These fleeting nights he steals with Charles are luxuries, and as Erik disentangles their legs and presses his shoulder into a cool patch of mattress, the knowledge is never far from his mind that he has survived deprivation and worse, that he doesn't need luxuries.

Even so, they can be deeply pleasant. Charles hums a happy sigh, reaching up to wrap Erik's wrist in a fragile bracelet of fingers. Erik lets his hand fall to Charles's chest, and that's where it stays, tingling faintly with Charles's pulse, as they drift off to sleep.

* * *** * * 

_Erik dreams of sunlight on a schoolday, of homemade cherry preserves on knotted rolls, of the stone-stepped house they'd been forced to abandon before he was ten. He dreams, with piercing sweetness, of his mother standing in the open doorway, handing him his books and caressing his hair back from his forehead as she smiles, then turning him to face the morning with cheerful words he can no longer hear, just the low music of her voice._

_Erik runs in his dream down open sunny streets, an eager schoolboy with life flowing through his veins, the sunlight bright on his unblemished face as he drinks down the fresh air. The child he was is happy, but to his present self the rest of the memory looms like storm clouds: he knows the corner he'll turn, the familiar sinking dread on catching sight of the sneering boys, the stones and epithets they'll hurl and his desperate scramble to duck and dodge and get_ away _. He tenses as he didn't in that blissful moment before he stumbled into what lay ahead --_

_\-- but just one figure stands on the corner, not three, a man with sleek brown hair and bright blue eyes. Charles, eyes narrowed against the sunlight, a slight enigmatic smile quirking his lips. Erik slows when he had accelerated, staring at this unexpected apparition until he stumbles and his feet fly out from beneath him as he tumbles towards the infinitely distant ground._

He slams into wakefulness like a wall, gasping as his eyes open. Beside him Charles blinks, lips parting in a surprised smile, face shining with discovery.

Erik has the sudden urge to use the bedsprings to scoop Charles up, to watch his fatuous little grin flash into shock as he's flung across the room. "You changed it," he accuses, sitting up, jerking his wrist from Charles's grasp, and Charles's eyebrows tilt in infuriating confusion. "You entered my dream and you changed it."

"I -- yes," Charles admits, leaning up on an elbow, and Erik does not let himself follow the sheet's rippling line across the smooth planes of his chest, narrows his gaze against the earnest midnight blue of Charles's eyes and the kiss-deepened redness of his mouth. "Occasionally, when I have a bedmate, my mind... wanders." He smiles slightly at the little joke, and Erik has to force himself to keep his own expression stony. "I followed warmth and sunshine until I found myself in your dream. I didn't mean to alter it, but when I felt your adult mind's apprehension I put myself between the boy you were and whatever was coming to harm you."

A low warm swell rolls through Erik's chest as he absorbs this little speech, until he has to shove it down, clenching his teeth together, shutting his eyes on Charles's hopeful smile. He should be furious, awash in the cold rage that has fueled his gift and armed him in his battles; he wonders briefly if Charles is draining it away, but neither is he pleased as Charles so clearly wants him to be. Looking at nothing but the reddish darkness behind his eyelids, focusing on the low hum of metal all around them rather than Charles's nearer warmth, Erik answers, "You can't edit my dreams on your whim." Even though he can barely recall the memory, the only fragments left to him his mother's smile from far above, sunshine and shock, boys shouting vileness. The dream lends them context, but he wouldn't even have remembered it without Charles's interference.

The armchair beneath the window should be a perfectly serviceable place to finish the night. Erik rolls over towards it, steeling himself to resist whatever Charles says next, but Charles merely lays a hand on his bicep and he stops short, palm on the bed, one foot dangling over the side. _He who hesitates is lost_ , Erik reminds himself, surely loudly enough for Charles to hear, but he lies there nevertheless, arrested by Charles's touch.

All Erik hears is quiet breathing, but then Charles's footsteps in his head would be silent unless he willed otherwise. "Don't edit my memories," Erik repeats, staring at the steel-rimmed window and the curtains luminous with filtered streetlight. _What is a man without his memories?_

"I won't," Charles says, with voice and with thought, light as falling feathers around Erik's mind. "I wouldn't, I haven't. It was just the dream --" Erik turns enough to slant his gaze at Charles across his shoulder, and watches blue eyes go wide. "I won't do that again either... I'll try, anyway. Perhaps I need more practice in keeping to my own head at close quarters."

Charles offers a tentative smile, soft with hope, and the smile Erik had suppressed creases his cheeks. He should get out of this bed, but he foolishly let go his momentum; he sinks onto his back, trying to move only his eyes, but he can feel the tightness in his jaw relax, see the triumph tilt into Charles's smile. "I'm sorry," Charles finally says, leaning in to kiss Erik, and Erik allows him to, lets himself sink into the lush warmth of it. Charles's disarrayed hair brushes his face and Erik reaches up to slide his fingers between the soft strands, pushing up into the kiss to taste sleep and life and eagerness in Charles's mouth.

Charles leans away and Erik concedes with a slight smile, a little uneasy at his own tenderness as his knuckles skim down Charles's cheek. So Charles smiles wider and whispers, "Fuck me?"

Erik's heart jumps within him as he stares at Charles, all inviting eyebrows and careless grin, and his cock stirs with disobedient interest. "I cannot ask that of you," he gasps, his voice thick and rough in his throat.

"I'm offering it to you," Charles answers, as easily as breathing. "I've been inside you tonight. Let me return the favor."

May a nonexistent God help him, but Erik can't bring himself to refuse. He surges up, pushing Charles down by his shoulders and crushing their mouths together, and as he moans Charles grips Erik's forearms tightly, strongly, his fingers denting Erik's skin. Charles is the counterpart Erik never dreamt of having, and deep in his soul he knows he should ruthlessly interrogate his own motives for consenting so readily, but Charles is beautiful and maddening and Erik wants him so fiercely his blood burns and the room creaks and whines, all its metal attuned to his arousal.

Erik pulls back to look at Charles, to make _sure_ , and Charles smiles up at him with that bruised-red mouth, with hazy half-lidded eyes. His "Stop worrying," clenches around Erik's heart, and he's about to snap at Charles to listen with his ears for once instead of his ever-inquisitive brain, when Charles adds, "I have done this before, trust me," and winks. "Not all the groovy mutations show up in girls."

Erik relaxes into a smile, almost about to laugh, and kisses Charles again as roughly as he dares. Charles opens to him with a pleased murmur, accepting his forcefulness with a throaty groan; the sound and scent and taste of him go to Erik's head like a mouthful of liquor, stir his blood like the tug of metal, stiffen his cock as if they had last had each other years rather than mere hours ago.

Charles's muffled moan vibrates Erik's mouth, and as he breaks the kiss on a little wet noise he swings a leg across Charles's hips, straddling him and earning himself a frustrated glance. As Charles complains, "How can I go and get--" Erik contemplates the crease between his eyebrows, summons the shaving kit by its zipper, and grins when his eyes flare. "Oh, I --"

Three hotels ago, Erik packed up a foil-sealed complimentary bottle of lotion. It would be easier to pull it out by hand than with his power, but then he'd have to let go of Charles's firm biceps, would have to look away from Charles's darkening cheeks and delighted grin as Erik rips the top off by the foil and catches the bottle as it falls.

There's not much in it, though Erik crushes it empty. "We should have --" he starts, thinking of something thicker, slipperier, more, but Charles shakes his head, flushed and beatific.

"You should have _me_ ," Charles says, bucking his hips for emphasis, his cock sliding in the groove of Erik's thigh. "Come _on_ ," as Erik coats his two longest fingers and spreads his other hand flat over Charles's pounding heart. " _Please_ ," as Charles reaches up to grip Erik's shoulders, hooking his knees over Erik's thighs.

As he looks into Charles's earnest face and watches the pulse throb in his throat, Erik hears whispers echo across his mind, _s'il te plait_ and _bitte_ and _por favor_ , pleading in all the languages he knows. "Charles," he growls reprovingly, and Charles shivers, eyelids fluttering, looking up all the while with such open trust, so incautious, so unafraid.

Erik drives his slicked fingers into Charles's body with more force than he should, as gently as he can make himself, and Charles's smile collapses into openmouthed shock, Charles's eyes squeeze shut and he whimpers so beautifully that Erik thrusts his fingers in again, and then again. "You want this?" Erik rumbles, his voice scraping his throat, reaching down to slide his palm over Charles's stiff cock, and Charles nods, gasping and keening, gripping Erik's shoulders every bit as strongly as Erik clutched his. There's a whispering emptiness in the back of Erik's mind, but he's not going to ask for that, not yet; his fingers curve around Charles's wet cock as his own aches with neglected readiness, but he can deny himself a little longer in order to smooth the pad of his thumb across the fleshy glans and watch Charles thrash, neck arched, head pressed back into the pillow, translucently red from hairline to breastbone. Charles groans his name as Erik synchronizes his hands, tensing around and within Erik's fingers, hips jerking tightly into Erik's strokes as his knees draw up to dent Erik's ribs and his balls draw up across Erik's wrist. Hands pumping, Erik leans into Charles's unwavering hold and watches enthralled once more as Charles shudders into orgasm beneath him.

Charles cries out with the pulses, long open spurts of sound, and Erik's whole body quivers in readiness, caught in the dynamic moment before action when he's most alive. Still gasping, Charles shakes with an aftershock as Erik pulls hasty fingers up his spent cock, chuckles breathlessly as his eyes open to glinting slits. Erik slicks himself with Charles's come, hissing through his teeth as his nerves light up like electrified wires; he pushes into encompassing heat and Charles starfishes around him, throwing a knee over his shoulder, clamping a muscular arch of leg around his waist and looping both arms tight around his neck, drawing him down with all four limbs. Erik falls towards Charles, falls into Charles, their mouths crashing into another buzzing kiss as Charles pulls him in as deep as he can go.

As it has every time they've been to bed, Charles's mind washes against Erik's, laying the gossamer tide of Charles's sensations over his. Erik groans under the onslaught, feeling not just Charles's tensing body but his fierce joy as Erik thrusts into him hard enough to rattle his frame, not only Charles wrapped all around him but his own body surging within Charles's hold. Erik presses his trembling mouth to Charles's cheek, struggling to ground himself with warm skin and soft prickling stubble, to battle his own loss of control as Charles engulfs him. He remembers the ocean where they met, Charles's arms around his chest and Charles's consciousness blanketing his mind, but now Charles is the ocean, drowning out the world.

Erik gulps sweat-savory air, grasps Charles's wrists and shoves them to the mattress beside his head, his thumbs pressed to Charles's racing pulse. "What are you doing to me?" he gasps, pleasure coursing down his nerves and his memory awash with the echoes of Charles's voice inside his head before he ever heard it hoarse with exertion in his ears. Charles coughs a sharp-edged noise, squirming to meet his thrusts, and Erik opens his eyes to see Charles's shining with his reflection, but shifted and polished in a thousand subtle ways, a happier and more hopeful man than the one in Erik's mirror of mornings. Erik's heart twists towards that image and he bares his teeth, and Charles winces slightly, those eyes crinkling shut. "Go on," Erik says, uncertain if he even hears his voice in air or just between their minds, _feel me feeling you,_ and Charles nods with a gasping openmouthed smile and lets Erik feel the circuit complete, spiraling upwards towards overload.

Erik wants to pull his hands off Charles's wrists and squeezes them till he can feel the sparks inside them as they creak under his fingers. He tries to slow the rotation of his hips and only accelerates his driving thrusts, feels the crackling ache of Charles's pleasure as his cock stiffens again against Erik's belly. He wants to smooth his thumb across Charles's tender bottom lip and finds his own teeth sunk irresistibly into it, feels the edge of pain sharpen the pleasure whetting his own. He shouldn't let go every last hold on himself but he does, falling into Charles entirely as Charles shakes apart in his hold and comes a second time all untouched, fluttering so tightly around Erik the delirium of it drags a hiss from him. _Come on, come on,_ licks through Erik's mind as liquid flame pours through his body, and he clutches Charles, the only solid thing in a melting universe, lets go and falls headlong into buffeting, wracking ecstasy. The pleasure crashes down onto him for an endlessly cyclical moment as Charles's satisfaction hums warm and wordless somewhere between his brain and his ears, until Erik finally collapses, sinews melted like wax, into Charles's easy embrace.

Beyond the headlong pound of his heart and the rushing tide of breath as Charles smiles loosely against his panting mouth, Erik hears various thumps and thuds, all the little metal items falling to the carpet. The mattress bows beneath them, its springs contorted out of true, and Charles's delighted laugh ripples through his head. "Thank God," Charles murmurs, pausing for breath in the middle, "the bedstead's wood."

Even as he says so it creaks around them. Erik reaches out and finds it filled with distorted nails and screws in mangled sockets, and Charles laughs aloud at Erik's wordless chagrin, ending on an "Oof."

Erik needs a moment to summon the energy to push himself off Charles, to withdraw somewhat gently; even so Charles winces slightly, but he smiles again before Erik can feel more than a flash of guilt, letting Erik feel his smile even before he can pull his eyelids up to see it shining in the night-dim room. "You just had to say that," Erik accuses, awash in a strange warm contentment that only intensifies as he watches Charles laugh.

This time Charles ends on a yawn. "I admit, we have rather wrecked the bed. Will it hold until morning?" Erik probes, and finds enough of its fastenings still in place that he can nod; Charles's sated smile is painfully beautiful. "Then let's assess the damage then. I don't think I can do anything but sleep after such a thorough rogering."

Erik should answer Charles's impudent words and sparkling eyes with something sharper than a besotted smile, but he just shakes his head and reaches for the blanket. They're both sweaty and sticky and could use a shower, but he's completely unstrung, lax with well-earned weariness, and Charles slumps indolently against him, so he drags the cover up over them and lets Charles have the last word.

"I am sorry about before," Charles says, more practicality than contriteness in his voice. "I promise to stay out of your dreams, at least as best I can."

He sounds as if he hopes to be invited back in, and Erik lets that thought sit at the top of his mind. "I suppose going to bed with a telepath has its risks." Charles smiles, sleepy-eyed and content, and when Erik turns him onto his side he goes pliantly, snuggling his thighs and ass and the long smooth unmarked line of his back into the planes of Erik's body. Erik brushes a hand up over the notch of Charles's throat, and Charles ducks his chin to kiss Erik's thumb; broadcasting one more soft pulse of peaceful warmth, Charles settles down in moments and leaves Erik alone within the bounds of his own head.

Erik lies quietly until Charles is solidly asleep, then pushes up onto an elbow and observes the even rise and fall of his chest beneath Erik's hand, how his sleep-smoothed face retains a man's firmness but the innocent beauty of a child's. The sort of child Erik was never able to be, and as he remembers the idealized image of himself that shone in Charles's eyes, warm longing and chill realism flicker in counterpoint. One by one he wraps filaments of his power around each bedspring and tugs it back into alignment so that the mattress at least won't be a total loss, and as he does it, watching Charles's eyelashes tremble on his cheekbone in his pleasure-drugged sleep, Erik considers that he can bend metal like paper or fuse it like clay, but Charles can do this to minds.

Erik wonders how to probe his own mind for distortion the way he can probe metal, how much Charles has changed him already with power and with affection, where one ends and the other begins. He casts his awareness towards the silver coin in his pants pocket, towards the mission he tells himself he's still on though Charles pulled him from the ocean and diverted his trajectory, but for once flesh draws more strongly than metal, and Erik doesn't peel away from Charles's warm sleeping body.

Does he choose not to, Erik asks himself, or is it that he cannot? And why doesn't the mere fact of that question send him scrambling into his clothes and fleeing into the night?

The coin rolls from Erik's pocket and flies to his outstretched hand, even as he turns the other to rest his palm between Charles's shoulderblades. Smiling wryly at the compromise that Charles, only Charles, could ever bring him to, Erik spins his coin between his spread fingers but keeps his eyes on Charles's quiet face, and despite satiety and weariness tugging at his mind he watches Charles sleep until the morning.


End file.
